Last Wednesday night, instead of tuning into one of my long-distance classes at Yeshivat Maharat, I joined BBC Radio DJ and host Lauren Laverne for Late Night Woman’s Hour.

In a relaxed round table format we discussed what ‘purity’ means for women in the context of food, sex, religion and thought. Emma Woolf, who chronicled her experience of anorexia in her book ‘An Apple a Day’ spoke about the current obsession for purity in food, Shirley Yanez explained why she took a vow of chastity after a near death experience, and pundit Helen Lewis addressed the subject in the context of political ideas.

My contribution – the religious perspective on purity – was substantially shaped by a recent series of ‘Pastoral Torah’ classes at Yeshivat Maharat that focused on embodied spirituality. Click on the image below to listen to the program: